The circadian clock plays a significant role in many aspects of female reproductive biology, including estrous cycling, ovulation, embryonic implantation, onset of puberty, and parturition. In an effort to link cell-specific circadian clocks to their specific roles in female reproduction, we used the promoter that controls expression of Steroidogenic Factor-1 (SF1) to drive Cre-recombinase-medi...

Conceptus loss during the pre-implantation and early post-implantation period hinders the efficiency of swine reproduction. Significant conceptus loss occurs during trophectoderm elongation between gestational day (D) 11 and D12. Elongation of the porcine conceptus is a key stage of development during which maternal recognition of pregnancy, initial placental development, and preparation for im...

AIM To investigate the regulatory function of Cox7a2 on steroidogenesis and the mechanism involved in TM3 mouse Leydig cells. METHODS The cDNA of Cox7a2 was cloned from TM3 mouse Leydig cells. It was subcloned to pDsRed-Express-N1 and transfected back into TM3 mouse Leydig cells for Cox7a2 overexpression by transient gene transfection. Steroidogenesis affected by overexpressed Cox7a2 was stud...

We investigated in this study the effects of ovine PRL on endocrine functions of cultured murine Leydig tumor cells (mLTC-1). The parameters studied were the activation of signal transduction systems involving cAMP and intracellular free Ca(2+), the expression of Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), expression and function of LH and PRL receptors (R), expression of the steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) p...

Bile acid synthesis occurs mainly via two pathways: the "classic" pathway, initiated by microsomal cholesterol 7alpha-hydroxylase (CYP7A1), and an "alternative" (acidic) pathway, initiated by sterol 27-hydroxylase (CYP27). CYP27 is located in the inner mitochondrial membrane, where cholesterol content is very low. We hypothesized that cholesterol transport into mitochondria may be rate-limiting...

Published results from our laboratory identified prohibitin (PHB), a gene product expressed in granulosa cells (GCs) that progressively increases during follicle maturation. Our current in vitro studies demonstrate that follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) stimulates Phb expression in rat primary GCs. The FSH-dependent expression of PHB was primarily localized within mitochondria, and positively ...

The circadian rhythm in glucocorticoid secretion by the adrenal cortex was long considered to be a product and direct reflection of the circadian rhythm of ACTH secretion by the anterior pituitary. However, data have accumulated for several years indicating that changes in circulating ACTH cannot fully explain the adrenal rhythm, and under many conditions there is a dissociation between ACTH an...

BACKGROUND The orphan nuclear receptor NR5A1 (steroidogenic factor-1, SF-1) is a master regulator of tissue-specific gene expression in reproductive and steroidogenic tissues. Two activating functions, AF-1 and AF-2, have been described to function in a cooperative manner to recruit transcriptional coactivators to the promoter regions of NR5A1-controlled genes. METHODS The role of the NR5A1 a...

52 This study reports for the first time in European sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax (L.), larvae, 53 the effect of different levels of dietary arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4n-6) on the expression of 54 genes related to the fish stress response. Copies of mRNA from genes related to 55 steroidogenesis (StAR (steroidogenic acute regulatory protein), c-Fos, and CYP11β (11β56 hydroxylase gene)), glucoc...